Attitude Orients READINESS: What CEO Humility Signals to Investors in a Crisis

Grounded in the crisis attitude construct and the READINESS framework, this study provides initial empirical evidence that CEO-expressed humility shapes investor appraisals, emotions, and relational orientation in a crisis. Humility is theorized as a cognitive and relational grounding mechanism that supports ethical leadership under crisis pressure and functions as an authentically expressed signal from which stakeholders construe meaning—above all, trustworthiness, itself an indicator of perceived ethical leadership. In a 2 × 2 (CEO-expressed humility × organizational crisis responsibility) between-subjects online experiment (N = 79), investors exposed to higher CEO-expressed humility reported significantly greater goal congruence, stronger perceptions of CEO trustworthiness and commitment to the CEO-investor relationship, and lower anger and fear. No interaction effects reached significance, indicating humility’s relational benefits do not appear contingent on organizational fault—challenging common conceptions of humility as fit only for seeking forgiveness and supporting its characterization as a stable leader orientation rather than a situational concession. CEO-expressed humility did not significantly affect perceived communicative assertiveness, suggesting humility need not be traded against expected leader strength in crisis. Theoretical contributions to the crisis attitude construct and READINESS framework, and practical implications for ethical CEO crisis communication are discussed.